


stars

by welovelogansanders



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Implied Crush, My OCs, Original work - Freeform, Other, futuristic setting, no happy ending, tense situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 04:10:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20383459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welovelogansanders/pseuds/welovelogansanders
Summary: Carter always dreamed of seeing the stars. Until a few days ago, it was never considered how soon they would be joining.





	1. Chapter 1

“Carter! Carter!” Their best friend, Karlos, called excitedly as he was running enthusiastically towards them. He was waving a big flyer and was wearing his oversized NASA hoodie, which was technically against protocol outside of buildings, but he didn’t seem to care.. He stopped for a moment, huffing and puffing as Carter awaited the news. Karlos finally recovered and shoved the flyer into their face. “Look!” He panted. “It’s a flyer for volunteers to go to the new colony!”

… what?

Carter took the paper eagerly, trying and failing to keep their heels from bouncing up and down in excitement. A new colony? Had they finally reached out to Saturn? Carter and Karlos were both newly graduates of the K5O encampment on Mars, which was already becoming extremely pollinated in its recent twenty years along with becoming overpopulated. The government had to set up more white walls to protect the people. “I think they’re going to attempt the atmosphere bubble again! This could be revolutionary! We could go! We could be their new engineers!” Karlos was belting out ideas as soon as they came to mind. Since Carter was a kid, there were always the white walls. They were born during the Pollution Cultivation of 2134, so they’ve never been able to see the stars. Ever. Only in pictures. This year, Karlos and them had finally earned their engineer degrees from the best encampment on this section of OA9. It felt like a miracle. 

“Well?!” Karlos jumped up and down with Carter, bouncing with energy (but when was he not?). “Let’s go, come on, the first physical testings are tonight!!” Huh?! Oh  _ scrap, _ they really had to hurry! Carefully, but quickly following Karlos, who was running like a ship outta Earth, they couldn’t stop smiling as they imagined the two of them getting on the ship together. Would it be tightly packed? To Carter’s embarrassment, they almost hoped so. As their cheeks were now tinted with a hue of grey-ish pink, Karlos took their hand so he didn’t lose them as they both ran for YOBAT’s sake for Carter’s home-building. When they got inside, Karlos slammed the door shut and leaned against it, a breathless sigh leaving his lips as he smiled shakily. “This is going to be the coolest shit ever,” he whispered, practically sparkles in his eyes. He almost broke the gravity settings of the home-building when he jumped up and floated for a moment, yelling excited gibberish. “This is going to be the coolest shit ever!” He shouted, doing a flip before crashing into the couch. Carter huffed what seemed to be a laugh despite their dislike of cussing. He grinned at them. “We gotta work on an essay as to  _ why _ we wanna become engineers for YOBAT’s new colonization plan. Let’s get to work!”

  
  
  


Carter felt like their knees were going to buckle and they’d faint right then and there. They could barely put on their binder that morning without shaking. It had been days since Karlos and them had taken their physicals and sent in their essays. Carter saw the letter in their mailbox and put it on the table, but hasn’t done anything since then. They wanted to eat and dress before anything else. Finally sitting down with their tea and cereal, they ripped open the letter and read it in between bites of food. Once they reached the end, it was a surprise they didn’t puke up everything they just ate.

_ “Welcome to YOBAT’s space community, Carter Harv.” _

  
  


The next day, they were already packed up and ready to move encampments, maybe even facility sections! Karlos was soon knocking on their door. “Carter! Carter, c’mon, we can maybe get there early!!” Carter huffed another half-laugh as they opened the door and smiled softly at their short friend. Since when was he ever early? Seeming to read their thoughts, he rolled his eyes and grabbed their wrist. “Yeah, yeah, let’s go!” And for once, despite OA9’s running protocol, Carter managed to sprint two times faster than Karlos ever had. They were going to see the stars!

  
  


“I had no idea it took this long to go over rules and protocols,” Karlos whispered to Carter, the both of them having been sitting with all the other engineers on the ship for what appeared to be two hours now. “Don’t we already know half of this?” They shrugged and leaned onto his side, not taking their eyes off of the hologram demonstrating what to do in case of an emergency and how to operate the ship if anything haywire occurred. It was true, they had already learned this at a young age, but it was always just in case. Carter was glad for it, considering that they realized they had forgotten most of these things over the years. Looking at Karlos’ face, they could tell that he had, too. It was good that they got a review. They tugged his sleeve. “Huh?” Karlos wheeled around and tilted his head. “What’s goin’ on, Carter?” They opened their mouth and prepared to speak.

_ BANG! _

The ship lurched, causing everyone to hit one side of of the cargo hold and hit that one side  _ hard. _

“Minno!” A girl screeched, hardly a year or so older than Carter. She scrambled over to what appeared to be Minno’s hunched form, and cradling him, it appeared that the side of his face was bleeding from impact. The ship lurched again. “Carter!” Karlos cried, grabbing onto them and holding onto the side of the wall. “What’s going on?” He whimpered, body trembling. The amount of stress in the room was overwhelming him and he felt like puking. He would, too, they’ve seen it happen. Was it an asteroid? The ship lurched again and the anti-gravity kicked on. Where was the captain?! Making a bold decision, Carter gently kissed Karlos’ forehead and buckled him down to a seat. He couldn’t even sputter out their name as they pushed off the seat and hit the door that said  _ CONTROL ROOM. _ Practically tearing it off its hinges, they looked inside to see that the captain and co-pilot had similar fate that Minno had. Unbuckling the captain, Carter shoved her into the seat with the co-pilot and began to assess the situation. Reaching their gaze from one side of the panel to another, it soon became apparent that they were caught in an unscheduled asteroid field. The left side of the ship took most of the impact, but there were still dents on both sides. Slamming the door shut and pressing the Morse code intercom, Carter desperately sent out several messages to Saturn’s new colony. 

_ “K622, do you read me?” _ The intercom screeched. Carter replied in Morse.  _ “Please remain calm. Where is the captain?” _ Carter told him about the asteroid field and both the captain and co-pilot are out of commission.  _ “You’re gonna have to land the ship yourself, okay? The Jupiter colonies aren’t too far out from where you are located. Can you do that? _ Carter can.  _ “We’ll notify AO8’s landing platforms and send ships out as soon as possible. If more issues arise, please notify us immediately.” _ Turning off the intercom, Carter set the gear and made a sharp left, twisting and dodging asteroids when possible. When a large button flashed orange, they knew it wouldn’t be long until they all would be stranded in space if they didn’t do something  _ now. _ They stepped on it, using as little energy from the ship (besides the engine) as possible. Beads of sweat poured down their face as they kept twisting and turning the ship, gaining a few more hits, wishing that Jupiter would show up sooner. The radar screamed at them and they dodged more asteroids, trying to ignore the familiar crying noises they heard through the metal door. They needed to get them to safety first. They needed to get  _ Karlos _ to safety first. Jupiter finally came into sight, but Carter was shaking too hard to be able for operating the ship anymore. Quickly signing back into the Morse intercom, they grabbed the attention of AO8’s landing platforms for a pull-in gravity. Complying, they let their body slump against the seat as they felt the ship being pulled from the technology on Jupiter’s base. Karlos was finally safe. Looking at the door again, Carter noticed that upon its immediate shutting, it had padlocked and was air-sealed. That was odd. The control room door shouldn’t seal unless there’s a-

_ CRACK. _

Carter whipped their head around to see that one of the thick windows of the ship had been slowly cracking after asteroid impact. In their panic, they didn’t notice it before. Scrambling for the Morse intercom again, they signaled in a warning for AO8 and a private message to deliver for Karlos.

_ CRACK, CRACK. _

The window wouldn’t stop. Soon enough, Carter felt themselves being violently pulled into the dark void of space as alarms started blaring. They could hear someone screaming their name. Was it Karlos? They hoped Karlos was alright. Once they finally averted their gaze from the pulling away ship, they would’ve gasped if they had the air. The stars. The stars were absolutely beautiful. Feeling their body freeze over and the final amount of air leave their lungs, they closed their eyes, their dying thoughts lingering on Karlos and how he would’ve loved to see them with Carter.

Carter always dreamed of seeing the stars. Until a few days ago, they never considered how soon they would be joining them.


	2. Karlos’ Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Given time to recover over recent events, the operators of Jupiter’s Morse intercom retrieve Karlos to relay Carter’s last message meant for him.

Karlos’ whole body went a dead sort of still. “Play it again,” he demanded quickly. The operator reopened the Morse intercom’s file. “Faster,” he croaked. The operator pushed the button, letting the message play again.

.. .-.. --- ...- . -.-- --- ..-

“Again.” Karlos was quivering as the floor spun.

.. .-.. --- ...- . -.-- --- ..-

Falling to the ground, he weeped.


End file.
